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A new iOS app aims to take much of the headache out of planning and carrying out your special day. (Published Tuesday, May 31, 2011)

Updated at 8:43 AM CDT on Wednesday, Jun 1, 2011

Weddings are supposed to be fun weekends full of friends, family, and food. However, so often, weddings lead to stress.

People are late to rehearsals, they can't find the chapel and then having to wait to see all the pictures from the weekend can tarnish the experience.

miWedding is here to solve those problems.

miWedding is an app in which you can organize all your information about your wedding, and distribute it to your guests. Once the bride and groom pay the initial fee, anyone you want is able to download the app for iPhone (Android coming soon) to see all the information you might need about a wedding. The bride and groom are able to include things like directions and phone numbers for important places such as the chapel or reception hall, or put points of interest for out of town guests.

Andrew Whiting, 32, came up with the idea for the app around the time of his New Year's Eve wedding. The Kentucky native was getting married in Cleveland, Ohio and was constantly being called by friends and family to ask what they should be doing in the area.

“I also had set up a Flickr account after wards, and asked my friends and family to upload the pictures they took from the weekend,” Whiting said, “and I thought it would be great to be able to do that in real time.”

Thus came the other big draw of the app, the instant photo album, where guests can take a picture straight from their phone and upload it to a shared Flickr account.

Once Whiting had the idea, he went to his friend, J Schwan, 35, the founder and president of Bottega Sol, the product development arm of Solstice Consulting, a company that assists large companies with tech solutions.

Schwan founded Solstice in 2001 here in Illinois to gear towards Chicago based companies. After growing up in the area, and receiving his engineering degree from University of Illinois, he realized just what kind of talent pool Chicago has, especially for tech companies.

"It's really an awesome bed of college talent," Schwan said. "You've got great tech school, great engineering schools, and a plethora of really smart kids."

"A big advantage of being out here is that there is less competition." Schwan continued, "Chicago is on an upswing, from success from companies such as Groupon."

The friends collaborated, along with lead developer Sujan Kanna, graphic designer Minna Mazza, and a team of developers to create the miWedding app.

Since miWedding’s launch earlier this week, the pair said that they have had plenty of interest, and already one purchase by a happy couple.

“Right now, we are getting people to understand the concept,” Whiting said. “People don’t know they need an app [for their wedding].”

“People who are looking at the app are getting married in two, maybe three months or longer.” Schwan added “We are working on making it seem like you need the app now.”